Defensive Real Passing Yards per Attempt

Final Statistics for the 2011 Season

About Defensive Real Passing Yards Per Attempt. The Cold, Hard Football Facts constantly use passing yards per attempt as a way to measure the effectiveness of each quarterback at getting the ball downfield. Longtime CHFF readers know that a quarterback’s average per attempt has an incredibly high correlation to success. The same goes for defense.

Real Passing Yards Per Attempt is a little more advanced and a team-wide indicator. It doesn’t just reward a quarterback for throwing the football. Instead, as a team indicator, it also includes the impact of sacks. Defensive Real Passing Yards Per Attempt is merely its defensive counterpart. We use only NET passing figures to determine yards per attempt. This is gross passing yards, minus yards lost via sacks. But we also divide it by total dropbacks – that is, not just pass attempts, but sacks as well. This formula the TRUE average per pass attempt, its Real Passing Yards Per Attempt.

Bottom line: it rewards defenses for generating sacks. There are few if any efficiency indicators outside of CHFF Insider that do so.